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AT P£E17, LA SALLE COUNTY, ILL. 



BY 

/ 

GEORGE W. HOLLEY 



-^®^- 



Printecl at the Chicago American Office, 

Corner of Clarke and South Water Streets. 

1839. 






Peru, July 8th, 1839. 
George W. Holley, Esq. 

Dear Sir — At a meeting of the Committee of arrange- 
ments for celebrating the Fourth of July at Peru, it was UNANIM- 
OUSLY RESOLVED, That the thanks of this committee be returned 
to Geo. W. Holley, Esq., for the able, eloquent and patriotic address 
with which he favored the citizens of Peru, on the late Anniversary of 
our National Independence, and that he be respectfully requested to fur 
nish the committee with a copy of the same for publication. 

H. Leonard, Chairman, 
L. Pearl, Secretary. 



Peru, July 10th, 1839. 
To II. Leonard, Esq. Chairman, and L. Pearl, Esq., Secretary.. 

Gentlemen — I have received your flattering note of 
the 8th inst., and in complying with the request of the committee, 1 can. 
not but feel that their kindness and partiality are greater than the mer- 
its of the address they propose to publish, a copy of which is herewith 
transmitted. Very respectfully, gentlemen 

Your friend and fellow citizen 

Geo. W. Holley. 



ORATION. 



Friends and Fellow Citizens : — 

We are met to welcome the annual return of 
our country's natal day. We are met to welcome the annual return of 
that day, on which the minions of tyranny and oppression were told in 
a voice of fearful and decided- earnestness, that they could no longer 
hold dominion in the land which our fathers claimed as their own. We 
are met to offer our tribute of respect and gratitude 10 those illustrious 
men who won, for us, our freedom, and to consecrate their memory 
anew in our hearts. We are met to offer the sincere homage of hum. 
ble and grateful hearts, to that Being who crowned with success the ef- 
forts of our Fathers in their struggle for liberty, and who hath vouchsaf- 
ed the continuance of that liberty with all its attendant blessings, to us, 
their children. 

And, on this auspicious day, if some ethereal spirit with a voice that 
could be heard throughout our land, should bid it 'rejoice, 'the invisible 
winds, as they stirred in the foliage of our groves and forests, would rus- * 
tie forth, 'rejoice,' — the birds from their left^ haunts would warble forth ^^ 
'rejoice,' — and the insects from their flowery homes, would prolong the / 
sound, 'rejoice;' — the gentle streams and mighty rivers, as they wound I 

their way to the home of the waters, would mnrmur forth, 'rejoice,' — 
the foaming torrent, with its voice of thunder would say, 'rejoice ;' — and 
the fathomless ocean, with its deep and solemn tones, would answer back 
'rejoice;' — the flocks on a thousand hills, and the herds in a thousand 
vallies, would utter forth, 'rejoice, — and the united acclamation of mill- 
ions of freemen, would be, 'rejoice !' And wherefore should we not 
rejoice ? Why should we attempt to restrain that natural, enthusiastic, 
and almost irresistible impulse, which promptjjikts to manifest, by eve- 
ry rational method, our heartfelt gratitude for countless blessings received 
and enjoyed ? Why should not the song of joy be mingled with the an- 
them of praise, and the shout of gladness be heard with the voice of 
thanksgiving, on a day like this ? When we compare our condition as 
a nation, with that of most ofihe civilized nations of the earth, we find 
abundant cause to rejoice and be glad that our lines have been cast in 
such pleasant places, and that our heritage is such a goodly one. And 



what, in brief, is the condition of those nations ? Sweden and Denmark 
occupying their places more because their inhospitable clime and rug- 
ged soil oiler no temptation to the conqueror, than for any other reason; 
Germany, divided into petty states, and metaphysiced, so to speak, into 
a perpetual fog ; — Austria, cunning and intriguing, her sceptre leaning 
upon the sword, and the bayonet being the chief conservator of her tran- 
quility ; Prussia, governed, at present, with prudence, but with an iron 
sceptre; Switzerland and Portugal, holding their stations through the 
jealousy of their more powerful neighbors; Russia, grasping and am- 
bitious, and ruled with more than an iron despotism ; Spain, once re- 
nowned and chivalric Spain, ruined by the long reign of a "booby 
king," and now divided against herself, her children pouring out their 
blood like water, for what or for whom, they scarcely know ; France, 
enlightened and powerful, but torn by factions and internal discords, 
rendering her government unstable and her people unquiet ; the Italian 
states seeking their chief freedom, limited as it is, in the masks of the 
carnival, and finding scarcely any thing more fallible than the infallibili- 
ty of him who isalike the head of church and state ; England, the na- 
tion from which we are proud to boast our descent, and whose youthful 
queen is the only reigning $o\ereign whom we can wish "Godspeed," 
extending her empire into every part of the world, honored and respect- 
ed abroad, but burdened with a debt which the income of a universe 
could hardly liquidate, and her people borne almost to the earth by 
tithes and enormous taxes ; Ireland, enthusiastic, whole-souled, whole- 
hearted Ireland, bound in the fetters of a union which represses her 
generous spirit and retards her onward progress ; Scotland, with her 
"kirks and caulds," content with the protection of the same union ; and 
Poland, unhappy Poland, — 

"O'er beauty, worth and'bravery's cheek 
Should fall the tear that's shed for thee," — 

thy name stricken from the list of nations, — thy territory divided as the 
spoil of implacable foes, — thy children dragging out the miserable rem- 
nant of existence on the desert wastes of Siberia, or wandering as exiles 
over the world ! 

How grateful the contrast — how delightful the contemplation, when 
we turn to our own favored land ! With an empire extending over 
nearly half a continent, embracing every variety ot climate and of soil, 
producing, in overflowing»^bundance, all the comforts and most of the 
luxuries of life — with inexhaustible mineral wealth — (tee. Irom public 
indebtedness and perplexing alliances — with a peopi.' i lustrums', 
enterprising, virtuous, intelligent, and more than all, and ibove all, 
enjoying the greatest possible degree of freedom, in thought, word, deed 
and conscience, holding themselves amenable only to then laws and 
their God — choosing their own rulers and their own teat -sitting 

under their own vines and fig trees with none to molest or : <ke them 
afraid. 



5 

There is upon the pages of history no sublimer record of merely- 
mortal events, than that which contains the story of our rise and progress 
as one of the independent nations of the earth. An 1 may God, in his 
mercy, grant that it may need no human hand to write the story of its 
decline and/all, but that that story may only be found among those 
celestial archives which shall contain the records of by-gone worlds! 
And surely, on this occasion, there can be no more thrilling nor 
appropriate retrospection, than that which carries us back to the days 
and scenes of our Pilgrim Fathers. And from such retrospection we 
may, perchance, appreciate more fully the vastness of the debt of 
gratitude we owe to those illustrious men ; arid also discover the mo. 
mentous responsibility that is devolved upon us as their legatees. A 
little more than two centuries since, they accomplished that voyage, and 
formed that compact, which was to constitute them, not merely the pio- 
neers of an isolated and dependant colony, but the founders of the migh- 
tiest and freest nation of the earth. Forgiving and forgetting all the 
injuries they had leceived at the hands of their countrymen — foregoing 
all the social comforts and habits of early life and maturer years — sac- 
rificing all the endearments of home and the domestic hearth — severing, 
at once and forever, all the ties of kindred, of country and of friends — 
with a purity and firmness of motive and of purpose which knew no com 
promise, with a boldness that, in any other cause, would have put auda- 
city to shame, — with a trust and confidence in God, which neither prin- 
cipalities **ui powers, nor any other thing utitler heaven could shake, 
they committed themselves to the terrors of the mighty deep, and 
sought on a savage continent that civil and religious freedom which had 
been denied them in their father land. They came not as refugees 
from justice, they came not as adventurers, they came not as reformers 
of any of the old social or civil poli6es, they came not as enthusiastic 
seekers after some imaginary good, some theoretic excellence, but they 
came as christians, as free?nen, and to seek in a new world, an asy- 
lum from religious intolerence and spiritual servitude ; to find a home 
where they and their children might worship their creator in the man- 
ner that should seem to them the most appropriate; to establish a com- 
munity where each person, in seeking his own good, should meet with 
the surest success in promoting the good of all ; where selfishness in the 
individual should be, not disarmed, but won over as the champion of 
the community. Upon the trackless ocean, before they had even caught 
a view of the rugged land whither the chilling winds were bearing them, 
they drew up, adopted and swore allegiance to the First Charter of 
Freedom. In the depth of winter they landed upon the dreary, and 
then, inhospitable shores of Plymouth. They met only a strange and 
savage race of beings, with whom they could exchange none of the 
comities or sympathies of life, and from whom they could only obtain, 
in scanty.. allowance, the merest necessaries to existence. Disease 
rendered the,m feeble, death thinned their ranks, famine threatened their 
extinction- But afflictions only increased their devotion, misfortunes 
only strengthened their fortitude. Undaunted by adversitv ; unsubdued 
A* 



by hardships, they still struggled with their destiny- -confiding in, and 
adoring, more and more, that God who chastened but never forsook 
them. And on the barren rock of Plymouth they kindled the first pale 
beacon-fire ofliberty — a fire whose spreading flame burned up through 
a revolution that was destined to change all the political theories and 
polities of ages past ; and which, at this moment consumes not, but 
warms into delightful and glorious exisience the inhabitants of an em. 
pire extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific; from near the tropic to 
the arctic circle ; and which illuminates and cheers onward the whole 
civilized world ! 

And it is neither boasting nor vanity to say, that the eyes of tbe whole 
enlightened portion of the human race are now turned, with anxious 
solicitude, to the progress of our experiment in self-government. Their 
dearest hopes; their best interests; their highest good; are staked upon 
the result of our efforts to illustrate and prove to the world that civil- 
ized men are capable of well and truly governing themselves. And if, 
with all our past experience, and all our present Knowledge; if with the 
searching light of the Gospel streaming upon and illuminating our way f 
revealing the path of duty and making it so plain that the wayfaring 
man need not err therein; if with all these advantages, we still prove 
recreant to our high trust, and permit our experiment to fail ; if as Amer- 
ican Citizens, we forget the ties and duties of patriotism; if we become 
dead to the thrilling memories of the past, and the glorious fruitions of 
the future and prove a patricidal people; the bitterness of regret, remorse 
and shame; the greater bitterness of a world's taunts and a world's 
scorn; the superlative bitterness of anarchy or despotism will be the 
just retribution of our more than folly — our fool-hardy madness. There 
is no other world for another Columbus to discover, and unless the 
wheels of lime can be stayed in their tracks, unless the fountains of 
knowledge can be dried up, unless that revelation which brought life 
and immortality to light, can be stricken into oblivion, and its sublime 
prophecies and sublimer teachings can be erased from the records of 
heaven, unless the immortal aspirations of the human mind can be sum. 
moned back from their high soaring and their higher destiny, so that 
the human race may commence again the journey of mortality, there 
can be no possible combination of circumstances, no possible series of 
events, that shall be so favorable to the formation of a pure represent, 
alive democracy, as those circumstances which were combined, and 
those events which did transpire, to consummate the establishment of 
our Government. Freedom, driven from all the old states, sought in 
this virgin world her last asylum, her noblest, fairest, final home. And 
here she hath scattered with lavish hand her choicest gifts, her richest 
blessings; here she hath established her altars and reared her fanes, 
and accursed forever be the sacrilegious hand that would mutilate or 
rend asunder either of the twenty-six columns that support tW hallowed 
dome ! /l4^u 

The discovery and colonization of the American continent, the com- 
mencement, progress and termination of the American revolution, the 



achievement of American freedom, with the new, inestimable and itf* 
numerable blessings resulting from that freedom to the whole human «. 
race, are not merely the epochs of a single nation, or a single o qu . i » toy ; C&t*4 
they form one of the sublime eras of a world. And if we of the pres- 
ent generation but appreciate our situation as the inheritors of that free- 
dom, as AW guardians and protectors, as the instruments through whom 
it is to be transmitted, not mutilated and abridged, but enlarged and 
adorned, to future times, we cannot but be impressed with the momen- 
tous responsibility devolved upon us. And it behooves us with anxious 
solicitude to enquire for, and seek out those means that shall seem most 
certain to enable us to- perpetuate it, and with all our might and an j^< 
earnest zeal to make a practical application of those means to the de- 
sired end. First and foremost among those means we hold to be the 
establishment and support of the Christian religion. The truth of a 
proposition which the events and experience of more than eighteen hun- 
dred years have demonstrated to a certainty, and have placed beyond 
controversy, requires neither comment nor illustration. Next to the 
progress which religion has made in a nation, and the estimation in 
which it is held, the prosperity and happiness of its people may be meas- 
ured by the degree of knowledge and virtue which are found among, 
and practiced by them. Knowledge and virtue are the surest promo- 
ters and preservers of liberty, as well as the best and surest sources of 
happiness to the individual; while on the contrary, ignorance and vice 
are the worst, foes of freedom, and also most fatally destructive, in eve- 
ry sense, to individuals. It does not necessarily follow that, because 
a nation is free and prosperous, it will therefore be enlightened and vir- 
tuous. But it does necessarily follow that, if a nation is enlightened 
and virtuous, it will, sooner or later, be free and prosperous. Eternal 
vigilance is the price of liberty ; and vigilance is a concomitant of wis- 
dom. Therefore, will the ignorant never be vigilant ; and the vicious 
will seldom be wise. But knowledge is born to none — to none be- 
queathed. Unremitting application is the price of its attainment, and 
whatever progress maybe made therein, it becomes a perpetual source 
of enjoyment which no earthly power can take away. And must em- 
phatically true are the words of Israel's sacred lyrist, that " the ways 
of wisdom are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are paths of 
peace." 

Among a people, then, desirous of preserving and enjoying the only 
freedom worth being preserved and enjoyed, a rational, chnsti.m free- 
dom, the sources of knowledge and the means of* acquiring it, should be 
abundant and easy of access. Not of that knowledge which is derived 
from speculative theories, or the vain imaginations of men, nor from 
the arrogant creeds and systems of sectarians and partisans ; but of 
that knowledge which results from a true comprehension of Philoso- 
phy, the sciences, and the arts, diversified, enlivened, embellished, with 
the refinements of an elegant literature ; the whole tempered -hasten- 
ed, leavened, with that sublimer knowledge — that diviner w\* i which- 
is revealed in the Book of Books, by the King of Kings. 



§ 

If our premises be true, it follows that wherever we find the places 
of public worship and the means of public instruction the most abundant, 
the most fully thronged, the most eagerly sought after, and the most 
assiduously improved, there we shall also find the most virtuous, the 
most enlightened, the most free, and consequently the most happy com. 
munilv. What is it that has rendered England the mightiest and 
freest of the old States, but her system of high schools, of elemosynary 
education, her richly endowed academies and colleges, and the sure ba- 
sis upon which the Christian religion is placed by the State? And 
what is it that has raised New England above old England, and most of 
the Eastern States to so high a rank among J***»-sistcr States, hut the 
system of public education, of common school instruction, and the un- 
compromising firmness with which the laws of God are enjoined upon 
and practiced by their citizens ? Every church is a magazine of virtue; 
every school house is an arsenal of knowledge, and every school fund 
a sinking fund for vice and crime, and consequently for public expendi- 
ture and private charity. 

Of what vital importance, then, does it become, that we of the West 
should make unremitting efforts to bring to our aid these powerful 
means, these mighty levers for raising ourselves to that exalted station 
among our sister communities, to which our transcendent natural and 
local advantages permit us to aspire ? Every year, every month, every 
day that wo neglect to avail ourselves of these important means for 
promoting our best interests, is a more than loss, a waste of time 
which ages cannot repair. Hitherto our apology for inactionh as been 
found in the circumstances of our situation. Most of us having left 
the homes of our childhood to seek our fortunes and anew home in this 
delightful region, where the lingering echo of the Indian warwhoop 
may yet be almost heard, and where the Indian footpaths are yet un- 
erased, have hitherto found ourselves sufficiently occupied in obtaining 
and securing the comforts and conveniences of life. But now that our. 
numbers are multiplied, our means increased, and our prosperity based 
upon a foundation as deep as our soil, and as broad as our prairies, let 
us consider delay inexcusable, if not criminal, and resolve upon a 
speedy consummation of these high purposes. 

Next to the promotion of the interests of religion and knowledge, the 
most important means for preserving the public liberty, is a strict 
observance of and obedience to the laws. The laws of our country, of 
our slate, of our community, which every citizen has sworn to obey and 
support at all limes, in all places, and under all circumstances, should 
be deemed paramount over every other obligation — should be placed 
beyond every exigency — should be considered supreme over every 
question of expediency. We cannot sufficiently admire the conduct 
of that ancient magistrate, who, forgetting the father in the judge, con- 
demned his own son to death for an offence against the State, wheM^t 
tenable position of the law, aided by a petition of his fellow. citizens, 
would have permitted him to pardon his child. It was a noble and illus- 
trious triumph of justice over affection — of the duties of patriotism over 



o\ 



the ties of kindred. Such a spirit cannot be too prevalent in a civil- 
ized community, however deplorable the recurrence of such peculiar 
instances of requiring its manifestation may be. 

. The means to which I have alluded are the most important for the per- 
petuation of our liberties ; and ours be the fault, nay, the crime, if they 
are not faithfully and efficiently applied. And there is every thing to 
encourage us — every thing to cheer us onward. If -we- may judge of 
the future by the past; if we may reason of probabilities from facts, 
we can hardly fail to believe that America is, politically speaking, (if 
the expression may be allowed) God's present Israel. He who sees 
not the hand of God, in our rise and progress as a nation, must have 
lost the power of perception, the capacity for comprehension. The 
evidences of providential direction are crowded thick upon every page 
of our nation's history. And hereafter, though foreign or civil 
war may harass or bleed us ; though our pride may be humbled ; 
though oar iniquities may be chastised ; though our prosperity 
may be checked ; though nullification may rear its horrid head ; 
though the over-zealous may become the slaves of bigotry or 

prejudice on the subject of slavery; though the sublime mysteries 
or magnificent mummeries of masonry may disturb the public 
tranquillity ; though sectional interests and prejudices may create sec- 
tional animosities; though questions of internal policy may distract and 
divide our people ; though that legal system, or rather illegal usurpation, 
which makes of a single individual judge, jury, sheriff, and executioner, 
may occasionally Lynch our citizens; though heartless demagogues 
may occasionally bear sway in our land and their councils prevail ; 
though foul treason may plot to betray us ; though unholy faction may 
mature their schemes among us ; though the madness of party may 
threaten the permanency of our institutions ; though the spirit of mo. 
bocracy, with iron heel, may sometimes trample upon our dearest rights, 
still shall these things all pass away like the storm-clouds of summer, 
and work together for our good ; still shall the mighty strength of out- 
constitution, the inherent vigor of oul» institutions, and the latent virtues 
of our people, bear us triumphantly through every danger and every 
trial ! still shall the spirit of American freedom cdme out mightier and 
purer from every conflict ; still shall the chosen Israel pass unscathed 
through every fiery ordeal. And just so surely as God, in the course 
of his good providence, has designed that righteousness shall triumph 
over iniquity ; that vice shall be brought captive to the footstool of 
virtue ; that tyranny and oppression in all their forms shall be banished 
from the earth, and that liberty, as it is the natural, shall also be the 
political condition of man; just so surely shall the whole human race one 
day be brought to share the full fruition of that glorious period when wars 
shall cease among men ; when the sword shall be beaten into plough- 
shares, and spears into pruning hooks ; when the lion and the lamb 
shall lie down together, and the little child, as it sports with the one, 
shall twine its fingers unharmed in the mane of the other ; when th« 
world shall be fkee ; when knowledge and virtue shall be the chief 



10 

objects of pursuit ; when the golden rule shall be adopted a3 the rule *i ' • 
life by each and by all ; when religion and the laws shall be supreme ; 
when all men shall be brethren in deed and in truth, acknowledging 
Christ as their common Saviour — God as their common Father ! Then, 
on the annual return of this day, shall the joyful songs of freedom, min- 
gled with the stirring anthems of praise, be heard through our vallies, 
and echoed tl> r w. ugh our mountains, until the rolling waters shail take up 
the glad sounds, and bear them to the habitants of every nation of the 
earth — every island of the sea — from whom they shall meet a cheer- 
ing welcome and a joyous response, the rapturous notes rising and 
swelling on every breeze, while the universal heart of humanity shall 
thrill with the harmonious strains of that sublimest melody ! 

But whatever m;»y be tlie changes and revolutions among the nations 
of the earth, the VVesi, the mighty valley of the Mississippi, witli a soil 
of surpassing fertility, traversed and enriched by the noblest rivers of 
the world, with exhaustless mineral wealth, contains within itself the 
best elements of national wealth and power ; and with a people true 
to its interest, might defy a world in arms. With such advantages, 
every free citizen, so far as equality of condition would permit, might 
become a Rasselas in all save his discontent ; and, beholding the happy 
valley a thousand fold enlarged, might also behold it bear the palm of 
superiority even from his storied home. 

But why should 1 attempt to speak to you of the west, in the com. 
mon place language of truth 1 You, who have seen it, as it were,fresh 
and glorious from the hand of its Creator, and who know what it ?nay 
become ! What hopes may you not cherish — what anticipations may 
you not indulge, concerning a land which requires a new dictionary of 
words of more emphatic meaning, of terms of mightier import, in order 
to describe it ! A land whose rivers throw those of the old world into 
brooks, in the comparison; in whose sky the georgeous and magnificent 
are done up in a style that renders discription impotent; where the 
thunder storms are of the mnmmolh sort, the rain-bows full grown, and 
the thunder and lightning of tJ* bill cut dimensions ; where generosi- 
ty and hospitality walk open handed, offering the thickest gum, with the 
same good will, to t4* friend or stranger ; whose soil compared with 
which, that of old Palasline in its primeval days, was nothing but a 
sandy beanpatch ; a soil which might even turn to good account the 
ingenuity of our Yankee brethren, and astonish them, (if any thing 
could astonish a Yankee, who is the shrewdest and keenest animal that 
ever went untrapped,) by showing them that even bass-wood cucumber 
seeds would sprout in a week, and soft maple nutmegs, if planted in 
June, come forth fully flavored in August ! ! 

Excuse this facetious magniloquence, this seeming exaggeration. — 
In speaking of the West — the glorious, the unrivalled West — magnilo- 
quence is but ;is the sluggish speech of dotage, and the quick step of 
exaggeration can hardly overtake the dead march of truth ! 

Bui pleasantry apart, — when our population shall have becom<; 
e-y.a! to that of the oldest states ; when our broad prairies, those roll- 



11 

ing seas of verdure, of bloom and of fragrance, shall have been divided 
into fields, and rendered subservient to the uses of husbandry ; when, 
along all our streams, shall be heard the busy hum of every species of 
machinery that can relieve the labor of man, and add to his wealth and 
comfort ; when our rivers shall be burning, as it were, with the fires of 
that peculiar vessel \v4aich, alone is competent to their navigation ; when 
cities, towns and villages, increasing in beauty and in wealth, shall 
have sprung up on every hand ; when the whole wide landscape shall 
have been enriched and adorned by the efforts of art, and over all its 
broad surface the temples of God, and the places of public instruction 
shall be thickly sown ; when our spiritual and temporal teachers shall 
be numerous, enlightened, and abundantly patronized ; when good 
morals, good habits and good laws shall have been permanently estab- 
lished armdrtg our people ; who then shall attempt to limit our wealth 
and prosperity---our happiness and renown ! The West may then be 
a new and enlarged paradise, occupied by a whole nation, instead of a 
single pair, of the human race. And let us cherish the hope that it may 
encounter the wiles of no second serpent ; may meet with no second 
fall. 

But if our people remaintrueto themselves, to their constitution, their 
laws, and their institutions, by what standard shali we attempt to meas- 
ure our country's future glory ; in what language shall we attempt to 
speak its fame ; in what strainJJShall we sing its praise 1 But on a theme 
like this, 

"Imagination's utmost stretch 
In languor dies away," * 

and the noblest sallies of reason sink impotent in weakness. I will 
not mar, by minuter details, those reflections upon it which must sug- 
gest themselves to every enlightened mind, but will only add, that 
if some enthusiastic artist should attempt to give you an emblematical 
sketch of America's future glory, he would represent to you a colos. 
sal statue, standing with one foot upon the Atlantic, the other upon the 
Pacific ocean, with one hand receiving the furry wealth of the frigid 
zone, with the other gathering in the varied riches of tropical climes. 
Before that statue he would place the tree of liberty, its roots deep and y « 
firmly stricken into the earth, itsJoliaged branches overspreading, but rr*4 
not shading, the whole of America's vast empire, blooming in perennial/ 
beauty, its fruits and flowers offered to all without money and without 
price. Leaning against that tree, he would picture to you the benign- 
ant spirit of a tolerant and evangelizing religion, respected and rever- 
ed by every member of the wide community, and their free will off- 
ering| strown in lavish abundance at his feet. Upon all her waters he 
would show you the smoking chimnies or the white sails of a humani- 
zing and enriching commerce, bearing home from every navigable wa- 
ter of the globe, the varied wealth of every clime. Her sea-coasts and 
her rivers would be dotted with magnificent cities, and the whole inte- 
rior studded with thriving and delightful villages and hamlets, or, resting 
in the rural and enchanting quiet and beauty of agricultural districts. 









12 



And everywhere through the wide landscape, he would show you the 
cheerful countenances of free and happy beings, giving life and vigor 
to the scene ; and, from the highest summit of her loftiest mountain. 
he would represent to you, in gigantic proportions, the Banner of Free- 
dom — the American Flag — streaming to the free winds in triumph * . 
and in glory, waving in splendor over time's l»e9fernoblest empire ; and,^*^/ 
in the enthusiasm of the moment, perchance his overwrought imagina- 
tion would whisper to him that there that banner should continue c<> 
wave, until the contents of the seventh vial shall be poured over the 
world ; and when the thrilling fiat shall go lorth, that time shall be no 
longer, and the heavens and the earth shall be rolled together as a 
scroll, that then that flag shall be, not the emblem of a fore i gn nation, 
but the winding-sheet of a departed world ! / /* . 

" Flag of the free hearts' only home ! J 

By angel hands to valor given, 
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome, 

And all thy hues were born in heaven. 
For ever float that standard sheet ! 

Where breathes the foe but falls before us. 
With Freedom's soil beneath our feet, 

And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us ! 



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